As a collaborative effort of the Center for American Progress and The Center for the Next Generation, this report examines where the United States is today and how that compares with two of its fiercest competitors for the jobs and thought leadership of the future, China and India. This report shows that their governments have embarked on ambitious and extensive strategies to lift more of their citizens out of poverty and illiteracy into the middle and upper reaches of society. It shows they have done so by expanding government support for families and making major investments in early childhood learning, expanded primary and secondary school public education systems, and post-secondary degree programs that produce candidates for the best jobs of the years ahead. Methodology is appended. (Contains 9 figures, 8 tables and 246 endnotes.)